Japanese Journal of Sociology最新文献

{"title":"Quality of Life in Japan. Contemporary Perspectives on Happiness. Ming-Chang Tsai and Noriko Iwai. Singapore: Springer, 2020. pp. 225, JPY 12,154 (ISBN: 9811389098, paperback)","authors":"Carola Hommerich","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12139","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12139","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"131-133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45476001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social change in Japan, 1989–2019: Social status, social consciousness, attitudes and values. Carola Hommerich, Naoki Sudo, and Toru KikkawaLondon: Routledge, 2021. pp. x and 175, £96.00 (hardback ISBN 978-0-367-35377-3)","authors":"David Chiavacci","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12131","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12131","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"127-130"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49457014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Issue Information - IFA","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ijjs.12127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"138-139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijjs.12127","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134805838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Social Movements and Political Activism in Contemporary Japan: Re-emerging from Invisibility. David Chiavacci and Julia Obinger (eds.) Routledge, London and New York. 2018.","authors":"Daishiro Nomiya","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12134","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12134","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"133-137"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48630419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Living with suicidal feelings: Japanese non-profit organizations for suicide prevention amid the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Yoko Yamada","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12138","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12138","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The number of suicides in Japan increased for the first time in 11 years during the COVID-19 pandemic. This trend is particularly high among employed women and students. The Japanese government expanded its budget for providing telephone and social network service (SNS) counseling by prefectures and non-profit organizations (NPOs). On the basis of interviews with the chairman as well as counselors of an NPO in Osaka (Japan) that has provided telephone counseling services on suicide for over 40 years, this study examines suicide and suicide prevention amid the COVID-19 pandemic with a particular focus on how suicidal feelings are accepted. The results clarify that people do not wish to die just because of financial troubles or health problems; rather, they have lost the meaning in their life in the conflicts between social conditions and their personal life histories. Additionally, as volunteer counselors often experience the suicide of close relatives, their empathy for a caller may be based on their experiences of being overwhelmed by the realization of the otherness of others. They do not regard the acceptance of suicidal feelings as a “job,” but act as “friends.” Although modern society conceals death and suicide cases, the key to achieving a society where no one is driven into committing suicide is to place human life and human rights first as well as to talk about suicide and suicidal feelings without making the subject taboo or an aberration.</p>","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"42-55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijjs.12138","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47696578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Domestic help and the gender division of domestic labor during the COVID-19 pandemic: Gender inequality among Japanese parents","authors":"Junko Nishimura","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12137","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12137","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The enduring COVID-19 pandemic has gradually transformed our everyday lives. This study focuses on changes in work and family arrangements, with particular focus on changes in domestic help, and examines its impact on the division of domestic labor. Using a social survey of work and the family conducted in November 2020 and May 2021, the results show that from January 2020 (pre-pandemic) to May 2021, approximately 40% of respondents experienced a reduced gender gap for housework and childcare, while a large gender gap is still observed in the absolute frequency of undertaking domestic labor. Some lifestyle changes triggered by the pandemic, such as an increase in the use of takeaways or delivery meals, and the expansion of working from home, are found to be able to contribute a shift toward more equal sharing of domestic labor. However, the fact that the access to such lifestyle changes is more common among those with a relatively high income or high educational background suggests that the lifestyle changes imposed by the pandemic may exacerbate class disparities in the gender gap in domestic labor. Furthermore, the results show that decreased kinship support results in a greater childcare burden being placed on women.</p>","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"67-85"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijjs.12137","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41502631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Regional disparities in bonding and bridging social capital: An empirical study of rural and urban Japan","authors":"Ziyi Qin,&nbsp;Katsuya Tanaka,&nbsp;Shunji Matsuoka","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12130","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12130","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article investigates regional social capital development by focusing on disparities in bonding and bridging social capital among rural and urban areas of Japan. Rural–urban differences in social capital in Western contexts have been discussed by many studies. Their main finding is that bonding social capital is richer in rural areas and bridging social capital is richer in urban areas. However, the empirical evidence presented in this article suggests that in Japan both bridging and bonding social capital are richer in rural than urban areas, diverging from traditional thinking about these two types of social capital. This finding suggests that urbanization and depopulation in rural areas of Japan have led to changes in people's behavior and their demand for social networks, promoting the development of bridging social capital in rural areas.</p>","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"110-126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46059979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction: Challenges of COVID-19 pandemic to Japanese society","authors":"Jun Imai","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12136","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12136","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to affect our daily life. Since its outbreak in early 2020, it has been a primary issue that defines people's lives around the globe. The new virus impacts members of society across the world. Sociologically, it has been an experimental situation under which it is possible to observe how different societies handle the health, economic, social, and cultural risks.&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; This special issue outlines how the social institutions of governance, employment, and work and life arrangement as well as people's lives and existence in Japan are impacted and how societies have responded to the risks caused by the pandemic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although the situation resembles an experimental condition, it is necessary to recognize that each region has its own biological and social-historical context. The physical impact of the virus seems to vary across regions. Figure 1 shows an international comparison of death by COVID-19 (cumulative COVID-19 deaths per million people).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is clear from Figure 1 that the physical impact of the virus is quite different between Western and Asian societies. Considering the difference in the policy responses of Western cultures, where stringent measures were taken such as lockdowns, the higher death toll in Western societies indicates that there should be a biological precondition, factor X, that produces “mysteriously low COVID-19 infection and deaths in Japan and neighboring [countries]” (&lt;i&gt;The Japan Times&lt;/i&gt;, December 11, &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;). It is said that the historical experience of exposure to similar viruses made the DNA of Asians resistant to COVID-19. Social and cultural explanations are pointed out, too: mask-wearing, hand-washing, and a strong awareness of public hygiene have been part of Japanese culture since before the spread of the new virus, which may explain the differential impact at least partially (Gordon &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;; &lt;i&gt;The Japan Times&lt;/i&gt;, May 28, &lt;span&gt;2020&lt;/span&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, for future international comparison, it is still meaningful to evaluate and report how Japan's social institutions and social relations responded to the situation. Since the pandemic is primarily a health problem, the situation tests how the medical and social security policies and institutions protect people's lives. It is an economic problem as the regulations, such as the declaration of a state of emergency,&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; targeted some economic activities, especially those involving face-to-face interactions, which were forced to slow down. It is also a social problem as the medical and economic crisis put various social relations under pressure. Employment is hurt, quantitatively and qualitatively. Local communities are in crisis; their traditional cultures are in danger of extinction. Some people are put in vulnerable situations where they face an existential threat. This special issue addresses these issues by turning to experts in respective fields of socio","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"3-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijjs.12136","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42711241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urban governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: An Urban political sociological approach to the case of Osaka","authors":"Masao Maruyama","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12135","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12135","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, we first review current Japanese urban and regional sociological literature on the COVID-19 pandemic. Some empirical studies of the current conditions, challenges, and difficulties faced by urban communities with the pandemic have loomed large. Although urban governance of infectious disease control has been generally an important research topic in urban studies, there is limited research on this aspect, particularly in Japan. Then, we briefly examine the urban governance of the pandemic in Japan, with a focus on the case of Osaka. Specifically, by analyzing the meeting minutes of Osaka Prefectural Government's countermeasure headquarters, we shed light on what issues were mainly dealt with and what main organizational actors were involved. The results indicate that, in addition to the administrative and political collaboration between central, prefectural, and municipal governments, the involvement of industrial and professional organizations (e.g., medical and economic associations) is particularly salient. This is because the governmental sector in Japan lacks a strong legal framework and a policy implementation capacity for infectious disease control. Consequently, it has requested (through intermediary associations) that residents, businesses, and hospitals cooperate with the government to control the spread of the virus. With regard to the characteristics of the Japanese urban governance of the pandemic, more comparative research between cities and regions in the country and those in other countries will be one of the important issues for future Japanese urban and regional sociology.</p>","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"7-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijjs.12135","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46126484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"COVID-19 Pandemic and Non-standard Employees in Japan","authors":"Koji Takahashi","doi":"10.1111/ijjs.12133","DOIUrl":"10.1111/ijjs.12133","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article aims to grasp the influence of the pandemic on standard and non-standard employees in Japan and clarify its disparity between them. In 2020, there was an imbalance between the slight increase in standard employees and the massive loss of non-standard employees in the labour market. Non-standard employees' working hours were greatly reduced, often without allowances for absence, and hence their monthly income considerably diminished. As a result, their well-being also declined. Thus, the pandemic has affected employment, and its impact has been felt most strongly by non-standard employees. This does not mean that there is no discriminatory treatment of non-standard employees in firms. However, a closer look at the real picture reveals a variety of factors. In addition to the discriminatory treatment that is related to the Japanese employment system, a combination of managerial factors such as the shortage of standard employees, practical factors such as differences in wage systems, and the lack of sufficient information about the expansion of the coverage of the Employment Adjustment Subsidy, have placed non-standard employees at a huge disadvantage.</p>","PeriodicalId":29652,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Journal of Sociology","volume":"31 1","pages":"23-41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ijjs.12133","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45562768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}